cruel to be kind

Chris Pirillo writes “video’s for Gnomedex are up“, but to see them, you have to register for The Hive.

On which I thought “oh cool, The Hive is now out of beta and can be tested” (I don’t remember if it was in beta, but I haven’t registered before which usually means that it was a closed beta). For playing around and for getting access to the videos, I would register.

But it struck me awkward to find the description on the page:

The Hive is a place for you to have conversations. Connect with other community leaders like yourself, and learn how to make your community better. Or, talk someone from Microsoft to get the inside story on technology.

Most importantly – be real and have fun!

Okay, having fun, no problem. Talking to Microsoft? Great. Have conversations? Love that. But … community leader? I am no ‘community leader’ or better, not in the sense they see it.

Which got me thinking: I am no Queen in my Hive. I don’t have a Hive. I have some fans, but that does not count for this. I would also like to be a Queen in the regard of having others do work for me. ;o)

But I am more a Queen between other Queens. When you read my articles, you are part of the conversation (and sometimes you are even from Microsoft), but you are not ‘mine’.

So when I read on the register page of The Hive:

Are you a leader of a community site? Become a validated member today.

The Hive has private forums for community leaders where you can connect and share tips on improving your community in an exclusive environment. This area is open only to community leaders with 50 or more members in their community. Complete the information on the left to be considered.

It seems to me as if I do not need to apply. Because I am no community leader.

And will not be, because my different communities of my blogs and podcasts are not to be lead by me, but I am the one who is granted space on their hard disk and an entry in their feedreader.

So this text leaves me with the impression of being “unworthy” of registering for something, which I only wanted to have to get access to the videos. And maybe play around and give some feedback.

I could also have talked about it on my German “community” (which has more than 50 ‘members’), my podcasts or this blog. But all of them don’t qualify, because the above stated members of communities means: Members in the hive.

Is it worth my time to look myself into a system, and put effort into it, so I reach only a part of the audience I do get here? Here, where you can get me through search engines, direct links tags and so forth? Traffic from search engines and tagging make usually up to 80% of the traffic on all of my websites.

I don’t blame Chris on this very much – hosting videos from an event as Gnomedex is a major effort, but I am not so sure it is really good to hide them behind some drones at the entry. And as you will notice, I don’t even try to test if I would be able to connect and have fun in the hive – I am already turning away at the doorstep because it does say “you are not welcome here. We only take Queens.”

Well, I am a Diva (sometimes). If you don’t make it easy and compelling enough for me to invest my time and efforts into your hive, then you have to attract others. Like old fashioned “community leaders”.

Technorati Tags: The Hive, Microsoft, Diva, Queen

Tags: the small things